Sure, but I will not get back to you until early January because that will be the about the first time that I will be home. I will get back to you as soon as I receive the checks and let know exactly what color destroyers that I have left.

yeah it was kind of a fluke as Matt threw all his go to discs in the creek and Beam pulled Paul, Earl and Crawdaddy (not so much Crawdaddy) away and you were in MI. Have not spoken to them yet - that will happen after the New Year. May play at Casual Friday if it happens or Saturday morning at the lastest ... having the #1 tag aint worth it unless it is defended .. Saturday afternoon may be rough unless we finish early as I have to be in Blue Ridge Summit around 8 pm at the lastest

regarding sponsorship I would like to figure out a couple of things such as alternatives and what type of materials I can put together to help with the Troegs chat and other groups. post round would be good ... may be playing saturday the 13th at the creek

haha...well...its been snowing pretty much for the past 4 days....straight....with mostly white out conditions...and its not gonna stop for the rest of the week....so you know how im feeling right now! lol

Anywho...while i was back in kalamazoo for thanksgiving break i tried to get out to the courses as much as i could but with the whole no daylight situation, your right...its hard to get a quick round in.

Thanks for the comment about my pictures. It was really amazing that i got so many awesome pics. I was fortunate enough to be working with the camera crew so i got to be up close to the action. I have to say that it was one of the most astounding opportunities i've ever had to volunteer for worlds. Its absolutly something that i will remember for a very long time. Im glad it was in kalamazoo!!!

Ultimate is also looking to expand like disc golf - and they have added grandmasters and dames divisions for the older folks. Yeah - before I broke my ankle I was doing that running crap - but every rainy day feels like a slow burn in my leg now

here is an example of what keeping in shape for competitive Ultimate requires ... off season is often level 1 training. You can tell those who train from those who do not in a couple of points on the field

Developing a Training Plan-Part 2
As requested, I uploaded a sample of a training plan spreadsheet to my webpage. It should be pretty easy to follow as I tried to make sure the nomenclature follows these posts. I only filled out through the first peak, and it is important to remember that this example plan does not include strength training.

Now that we have established the number of hours per week for our training period, we need to step back an examine the types of workouts we are going to do. This plan uses heart rate as its metric, so it is necessary to purchase a heart rate monitor. This section is straight out of the Sleamaker book. The plan is divided up into four intensity levels. Intensity levels are defined by a heart rate range and by type of exercises. There are physiological benefits to each range, but I am going to save that for another post.

To calculate your heart rate ranges, you need to know your Measured Resting Heart Rate(MRHR), and your Estimated Maximum Heart Rate(EMHR). Your MRHR should be measured first thing in the morning after you go to the bathroom. The simple way to calculate your EMHR is to subtract your age from 220. Once you know these, you can calculate your Heart Rate Reserve(HRR), which is EMHR-MRHR. All the limits of the intensity levels are calculated as HRRx(x%)+MRHR.

Exercises: Long runs. They are called Endurance (EN) runs. Strength workouts.

Level 3:
Lower Limit=HRRx.81+MRHR
Upper Limit=HRRx.9+MRHR (This number should be close to your AT)

Exercises: Intervals, hill runs, most stadium runs, plyos. In my spreadsheet, I split up these exercises into separate workouts.

Level 4:
Lower Limit=HRRx.91+MRHR
Upper Limit=HRRx1.0+MRHR

Exercises: Sprints (less than 400m), some stadium runs, some plyos, agility work such as shuttle runs.

Up until this point, this plan is just the same as a plan for training for a 10k or a marathon. When I first read Sleamaker's book, I was concerned that the focus on endurance was inappropriate for Ultimate. I decided to contact Sleamaker, and he graciously helped me tweak his plan. So, what follows next is your opportunity to customize the plan to suit your needs, and make it a plan for Ultimate.

For each phase of the training period, we need to assign a % for each intensity level. There are some typical rules of thumb, but, as I said, it is customizable. I put out percentages for all the phases through the first peak on my spreadsheet. Typically, for the first couple of base phases, the focus is on increasing your bodies ability to process oxygen as you develop a foundation. So, for my plan, I assign 66% of phase 1 to OD, and 33% to EN. To take it back to the example from the first post, we figured out that for the first week of the plan, the total week hours is 2.78. Therefore, your OD total for week 1 will be (in minutes): 2.78(total week hours)x.66(OD %)*60(to convert it to minutes)=110 minutes. EN will be: 2.78 x .33 x 60=55 minutes. As you apply these percentages to each week, the times of the workouts will increase as the phase percentages increase (from 23% to 26% to 29%) to the peak in week 3. Your total OD workout for week 3 will be:

In terms of doing the workouts, I try to do the OD and EN work in as few workouts as possible. In other words, I prefer doing one 139 minute workout rather than 3-4 shorter workouts. For the INT work, there are a lot of variables in terms of length of each rep as well as the time of recovery. For my first INT workouts of the year, I do 2 minute reps with 2 minute recover. I ramp this up during the year, so that by the summer my reps are 6 minutes long (or more) and the recovery time is about 3 minutes. When you run the numbers for your spreadsheet, you might feel, at first, that the time allocated for your speed work is too short. Remember that these are very intense workouts. I will sometimes combine a stadium workout (INT) with my speed workouts(Speed) in order to get a full 45 minute workout. Lastly, remember that you are also weight lifting and probably starting up your Ultimate practices, so while it seems like it is not enough.....things get very busy.

The idea is to slowly decrease your intensity level 1 and 2 workouts as you mix in your level 3 and 4 workouts. By Intensity Phase #1, my balance is about 70% levels 3 and 4 to 30% levels 1 and 2. By Peak Phase #1, I am no longer doing intensity level 1 and 2 workouts.

The main suggestions I received from Sleamaker about making the plan appropriate for Ultimate were:

1) increase overall percentages of level 3 and 4 workouts as compared to the typical endurance sport. In Sleamaker's templates, he usually allocates a max of 25% to level 3 workouts. For my plan this year, my level 3 allocation for Intensity Phase #1 is 65%.

2) start the level 3 and 4 workouts a bit earlier than endurance sports. We need to keep tabs on our bodies to make sure we don't get worn down, but it is a good idea to get those fast twitch muscles firing. I begin mixing in my intervals at the beginning of Base Phase #3 (roughly mid to late January).

I am going to get into some additional aspects of this training plan is later posts. Some of the topics will be:

Chas - one thing that a lot of Ultimate players like about the sport is the chance to continue expressing themselves as athletes - running, jumping, laying out for a defense or disc and another is the complexity of the offenses and defenses ... disc golf does not have those things and the people who play for those reasons rarely cross the line regardless of the shape of the disc

the culture of Ultimate is radically different than disc golf. women players have created their own world and really like that it has happened that way. disc golf is very much a clubby boys room that in not very welcoming ... the change in disc will not do much ... the culture has to change

will not play super class. will play more weapon disc tournaments. when things get to be divided so many different ways ... like mini golf which I think is ridiculous ... just try to stay with one ... are you at home or work today Chas?

Haven't played Harrisburg courses yet and you're correct that I have photos from Jordan Creek and Little Lehigh online. Let me know when you might be planning your Super Class event. I've heard from two manufacturers who are working to get more Super Class discs available for the 2009 season and I can keep you posted.

I've played quite a few of the PA courses. Which end of the state? What we've found with Super Class is on courses with two sets of tees, make sure to play at least 4 or 5 of the shortest holes from the short tee and the remainder from the long tees so you get a good mix of pars. Many of the shorter holes if played from the long tee are too long to have deuce chance with Super Class. So playing several short tees keeps that deuce/ace run fun in the round. The goal with Super Class isn't to convert existing players as much as get new players involved. Make sure to tie into whatever ultimate org in in the area to let those players know they can practice their skills in Super Class events. For your existing players, encourage each of them to bring one new player. That's one reason we don't have the $10 non-member fee.